Productivity

It’s simple math 🧐 I use to think that motivation was the key to monumental success. Long story short, it’s not. It’s about the little things you do every day that will take you from reasonable to slightly unreasonable to completely unreasonable progress. Your future is not defined by how motivated you are, but by your daily routines and systems. I believe in this so much that we named our company Butterfly 3ffect to reflect the value of incremental gains. we believe that that’s how the best people and brands grow. Here’s how you grow the small way: 1. Start by setting achievable goals, like reading one chapter of a book each day or going for a short walk 2. Practice gratitude by writing down three things you're thankful for every night before bed 3. Engage in daily self-reflection, even if it's just for a few minutes, to assess your thoughts and actions 4. Incorporate small acts of kindness into your daily routine, like holding the door for someone or offering a genuine compliment 5. Learn something new every day, whether it's a fun fact, a new word, or a new skill 6. Prioritise self-care by getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and taking breaks when needed 7. Surround yourself with positive influences, whether it's uplifting books, supportive friends, or inspiring podcasts 8. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity and a stepping stone to growth 9. Stay consistent and patient, knowing that small progress over time adds up to significant improvement 10. Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small, to stay motivated and encouraged along the way.

𝐈𝐒𝐀-𝟗𝟓 has been the longstanding defacto model for how information flow between enterprise and control systems within a manufacturing environment. This standard sets a baseline for terminology, hierarchy models, functional data flow models, object models, and even operational models. As technology has changed, so must our models. Today's Industry 4.0 technologies (most notably IIoT in this case) have created an entirely different way of networking mostly based on publication & subscription instead of the traditional point-to-point communication. This allows every device to be able to communicate directly with every other device, changing the infrastructure away from “hierarchical layers”. However, the idea of functional layers is still very relevant! 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠? A “Flatter” version of the ISA-95 model with more connection options.  This allows for new levels of process integration across production and business functions, but unfortunately can cause friction between IT and OT teams if not properly addressed, governed, and managed. For more information, check out CESMII’s Conrad Leiva' article in the Journal of Advanced Manufacturing and Processing on the first principles of smart manufacturing addressing this very topic: https://lnkd.in/g7EDMKXx How are you seeing the ISA-95 model be modified to meet the needs of Industry 4.0? #Industry40 ******************************************** • Follow #JeffWinterInsights to stay current on Industry 4.0 and other cool tech trends • Ring the 🔔 for notifications!

Your afternoon slump is costing you (it’s more than you think) Feeling sluggish in the afternoon? It’s not just in your head—it’s hardwired into your biology. Here’s why timing matters (and how to use it to your advantage) 👇 Science backs it up: We hit a biological dip about 7 hours after waking up. That’s when we’re less sharp, make more mistakes, and perform worse overall. And the data proves it. Consider this: 📉 Test scores are lower in the afternoon. 🚑 Doctors miss more polyps during afternoon procedures. 🚗 Car accidents spike between 2–4 p.m. Mistakes happen when we’re running on low mental energy. The fix? Schedule around your brain. 🔹 Critical work? Do it in the morning. 🔹 Medical appointments? Book early. 🔹 Big decisions? Avoid the afternoon slump. You don’t need more coffee. You need better timing. Small adjustments = fewer mistakes, better results, and a sharper mind. Plan your day accordingly. What’s one thing you’ll reschedule for peak performance?

A monthly ritual that changed my life. The Think Day (everyone should try this): In the 1980s, Bill Gates began an annual tradition he called the Think Week. Gates would seclude himself in a remote location, shut off communication, and spend a week dedicated to reading and thinking. The radical approach became essential to his process: "Think Week is a time when I can be creative and push my own thinking. It's a time to step outside the day-to-day demands of my job and really focus on the big picture." - Bill Gates I first read about the Think Week a few years ago and knew I wanted to give it a shot. I didn't have an entire week to dedicate to it (early career demands, family priorities, etc.), but figured I could adapt something with a similar core vision. The Think Day was my creation: Pick one day each month to step back from all of your day-to-day professional demands: • Seclude yourself (mentally or physically). • Shut off all of your devices. • Put up an out-of-office response. The goal: Spend the entire day reading, learning, journaling, and THINKING. By doing this, you create the free time to zoom out, open your mind, and think creatively about the bigger picture. My essential tools for Think Day: • Journal and pen. • Books/articles I've been wanting to read. • Secluded location (at home, rental, or outside). • Thinking prompts to spark my mind. Six thinking prompts I have found particularly useful: 1. Are you hunting antelope (big important problems) or field mice (small urgent problems)? 2. How can you do less, but better? 3. What are your strongest beliefs? What would it take for you to change your mind on them? 4. What are a few things that you know now that you wish you knew 5 years ago? 5. What actions were you engaged in 5 years ago that you cringe at today? What actions are you engaged in today that you will cringe at in 5 years? 6. What would your 80-year-old self say about your decisions today? I aim for an 8-hour window split into 60-minute focus blocks with walks in between. You have to slow down to speed up. In a speed-obsessed world, the benefits of slowing down are extensive: • Restore energy • Notice things you missed • Be more deliberate with actions • Focus on the highest leverage opportunities • Move slow to move fast. The Think Day can help. Give it a shot and let me know what you think. *** If you enjoyed this or learned something, follow me Sahil Bloom for more in future!

💡 Can Technology Light Up Our World? I came across the Liter of Light project again this week — a plastic bottle, some water, and sunlight — and suddenly, darkness disappears. It’s one of those ideas that feels too simple to be real. No wires. No batteries. Just light, refracted through clarity. The project began in the Philippines and has since spread across the world — turning discarded bottles into skylights for homes, classrooms, and communities. 100% sustainable. Accessible. Affordable. And human at its core. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Because in my world, innovation usually starts with GPUs, data, and billion-dollar labs. But this one started with scarcity — and still managed to create abundance. That contrast says something uncomfortable about how we define progress. Maybe innovation isn’t about building smarter systems. Maybe it’s about remembering why we build at all. When you design from limits, you see the world differently: → You question assumptions instead of adding features. → You focus on purpose, not performance. → You create tools that return power, not just use it. Here’s what this mindset looks like in practice: ✅ Reimagine the problem. Ask “What’s essential?” before “What’s possible?” ✅ Design for access. If it doesn’t reach the edges of society, it’s not innovation. ✅ Teach simplicity. Complexity might impress people — but simplicity empowers them. But here’s the deeper layer most people miss 👇 → Scarcity doesn’t limit innovation — it purifies it. When you have less, you’re forced to confront what truly matters. → Constraint breeds clarity. It removes everything unnecessary until only truth remains. → Simplicity scales trust. The fewer dependencies a design has, the more universally it works. That’s why Liter of Light feels so profound to me. It’s not just about sustainability — it’s about subtractive intelligence. It shows that the smartest ideas don’t add complexity; they restore perspective. To me, this is the real frontier of technology — not artificial intelligence, but applied empathy. 💭 What if the next breakthrough isn’t about generating more power — but learning how to share the light we already have? #InnovationWithPurpose #HumanCenteredDesign #FrugalInnovation #SubtractiveThinking #TechForGood #AIandHumanity

Back from Brussels, where talks with EU leaders focused on one thing – how to keep Europe competitive in an increasingly complex world. There’s a clear sense of urgency – and at the same time, a willingness to act. What stood out to me was the broad agreement on some key points: 1️⃣ Europe must remain attractive for industrial investment. That means speeding up permitting, simplifying regulation, and making funding tools work for real projects on the ground – not just in policy papers. 2️⃣ We need to strengthen transatlantic ties without slipping into a tariff race. The conversation should be about industrial cooperation, not confrontation. Tariffs and retaliatory measures won’t make us more resilient – but coordinated action might. 3️⃣ On China, the challenge is to rebalance, not to decouple. The goal must be to reduce risk without cutting ourselves off from vital trade and global innovation. 4️⃣ Europe also needs a more strategic approach to how it supports its partners abroad. Finance aid should go hand in hand with industrial cooperation – especially in sectors like energy and infrastructure. 5️⃣ And finally, we need to make Europe easier to build in. That means aligning rules with impact and simplifying regulation around hydrogen, grid procurement, and offshore wind. This will require a stronger Clean Industrial Deal with more targeted investment. As a company with deep roots in Europe – 65,000 people working across the EU – we at Siemens Energy are continuing to invest: in technology and talent. In order to maintain this momentum, we need a policy environment that matches the scale and ambition of Europe’s industrial potential. Thank you President Ursula von der Leyen, President Roberta Metsola, Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné, and the representatives from the Directorate-General for Trade for the valuable exchange. 📸: Dati Bendo

Transformation thrives when people are empowered to make the most of technology. 🚀 My recent visit to the Bosch production facility for automotive and eBike drives in Miskolc, Hungary, showcased this perfectly. I was deeply impressed to see firsthand how their progress in digitalization and the implementation of the Bosch Manufacturing and Logistics Platform (BMLP) is reshaping their manufacturing operations. BMLP is a globally standardized, open IT platform that connects all stages of production and logistics. During an insightful plant tour, I observed a successful example of how the platform leads to significant improvements in efficiency, quality, and data transparency across the plant. What stood out most was seeing the passionate and enthusiastic team at Miskolc leverage this technology in action and achieving great results towards operational excellence. Here are three key areas where BMLP is contributing to the plant’s digital transformation success, powered by our NEXEED IAS: 1️⃣ Enhanced Efficiency & Reduced Downtime: The module Shopfloor Management enables a closed PDCA cycle in production by consequent integration of all relevant information in one system. This leads to quick reaction in case of deviations to minimize downtimes and safeguard the daily performance targets.   2️⃣ Improved Product Quality: Continuous monitoring throughout production stages helps the team identify issues early, ensuring top-tier quality while driving process improvements.   3️⃣ Change Management: Change management plays a crucial role in digital transformation within a plant. As seen in Miskolc, effectively managing change ensures that the workforce is engaged, and equipped to embrace new technologies, driving sustainable success. In Miskolc we have seen solutions using gamification that help to involve all associates, making the transition both engaging and effective.   I was also excited to see AI in action with a live demo of 8D Analysis using GenAI, cutting failure analysis time by half. By automating the root cause analysis process, engineers are now spending less time on administrative tasks and more on proactive problem-solving – a great example of how technology empowers people. Beyond the production lines, the most rewarding part of the visit was engaging with the team. Their passion for digitalization, commitment to upskilling, and their drive for innovation truly brought home the message: technology is only as strong as the people behind it. A special thank you to the entire Miskolc team for the inspiring discussions and warm welcome – along with Volker Schilling, Klaus Maeder, Joerg Klingler, Volker Schiek, Norbert Jung, Stephan Brand, Aemen Bouafif, and everyone who joined us on this great trip. I’m excited to see what’s next on this incredible digitalization journey!

Science has long relied on single ML models - powerful, but limited because they are bound by baked-in knowledge. Our recent experiments show that genuine discovery may emerge when a very large number of agents interact, adapt, and co-create, much like biology itself. Last week at Harvard’s Big Data 2025 I shared how multi-agent swarms are potential paths to move beyond pattern-analysis to invent - exemplified in very difficult problem spaces such as de novo proteins and music with long-range form. The swarms are formulated like reinforcement-learning collectives, where agents learn on the fly, adapt to each other, and evolve strategies in real time, to yield hallmarks of intelligence that a single model cannot exhibit. Our swarm generated proteins well outside natural and single-model clusters (UMAP), and the music scored the highest small-worldness with the most long-range links, the signature of integrated, human-like creative structure. In a deeper analysis, when we mapped how themes in the music connect across time, the swarm built networks with the tightest balance of local clusters and global connections, beating all baselines. The resulting composition was not just repeating patterns stitched together, but showed organic global coherence without repetition, like sparks of creativity emerging on their own. Preprints coming soon!

Last month, we saved 5 lakhs in just 10 minutes by doing one thing. Let me tell you about this small adjustment that made a huge impact at Go Zero. Here's how our packaging works: → Ice cream goes into plastic cups → 12 cups go into cartons → Cartons go into crates for storage and transport And the cartons we were buying were the standard size in the market. So, each crate held 5 cartons = 60 cups total. One day, someone walked out of our cold room carrying these crates. And I noticed something - there was empty space in each crate. It got me thinking how we can fit one more carton in here. Tried it. Didn't fit. It was just 10mm short. Instead of accepting it, I did the math. We already had 5 cartons in the crate. If I reduced each carton's height by just 2mm, I'd free up exactly the 10mm needed for the 6th carton. The impact was immediate: 5 cartons per crate became 6 cartons per crate. Scale that up - every 100 crates now carry 600 cartons instead of 500. Same truck. Same storage space. 20% more product. All because of 2mm. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from the smallest observations. You just have to be willing to question what everyone else accepts as "standard."

From Blueprint to Battlefield: Reinventing Enterprise Architecture for Smart Manufacturing Agility
   Core Principle: Transition from a static, process-centric EA to a cognitive, data-driven, and ecosystem-integrated architecture that enables autonomous decision-making, hyper-agility, and self-optimizing production systems.   To support a future-ready manufacturing model, the EA must evolve across 10 foundational shifts — from static control to dynamic orchestration.   Step 1: Embed “AI-First” Design in Architecture Action: - Replace siloed automation with AI agents that orchestrate workflows across IT, OT, and supply chains. - Example: A semiconductor fab replaced PLC-based logic with AI agents that dynamically adjust wafer production parameters (temperature, pressure) in real time, reducing defects by 22%.   Shift: From rule-based automation → self-learning systems.   Step 2: Build a Federated Data Mesh Action: - Dismantle centralized data lakes: Deploy domain-specific data products (e.g., machine health, energy consumption) owned by cross-functional teams. - Example: An aerospace manufacturer created a “Quality Data Product” combining IoT sensor data (CNC machines) and supplier QC reports, cutting rework by 35%.   Shift: From centralized data ownership → decentralized, domain-driven data ecosystems.   Step 3: Adopt Composable Architecture Action: - Modularize legacy MES/ERP: Break monolithic systems into microservices (e.g., “inventory optimization” as a standalone service). - Example: A tire manufacturer decoupled its scheduling system into API-driven modules, enabling real-time rescheduling during rubber supply shortages.   Shift: From rigid, monolithic systems → plug-and-play “Lego blocks”.   Step 4: Enable Edge-to-Cloud Continuum Action: - Process latency-critical tasks (e.g., robotic vision) at the edge to optimize response times and reduce data gravity. - Example: A heavy machinery company used edge AI to inspect welds in 50ms (vs. 2s with cloud), avoiding $8M/year in recall costs.   Shift: From cloud-centric → edge intelligence with hybrid governance.   Step 5: Create a “Living” Digital Twin Ecosystem Action: - Integrate physics-based models with live IoT/ERP data to simulate, predict, and prescribe actions. - Example: A chemical plant’s digital twin autonomously adjusted reactor conditions using weather + demand forecasts, boosting yield by 18%.   Shift: From descriptive dashboards → prescriptive, closed-loop twins.   Step 6: Implement Autonomous Governance Action: - Embed compliance into architecture using blockchain and smart contracts for trustless, audit-ready execution. - Example: A EV battery supplier enforced ethical mining by embedding IoT/blockchain traceability into its EA, resolving 95% of audit queries instantly.   Shift: From manual audits → machine-executable policies.   Continue in 1st and 2nd comments.   Transform Partner – Your Strategic Champion for Digital Transformation   Image Source: Gartner